Free Republic

As other competitors test the Republican mayoral primary waters, the party’s best-funded candidate Paul Massey says he’s in it to win it. “I’m the competitor for the current mayor now, I think people understand that,” Massey said. Massey spoke at an independent Catholic school in Flatbush not run by the city — a week after having hip surgery, touring the building while wearing tapered maroon sweatpants, slip-on shoes, and with the help of a cane adorned with a silver-colored lion as the handle.

The Republican field for the mayor’s race has winnowed down to two major candidates -- real estate executive Paul Massey and state Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis -- and a few longshot contenders with a minimal presence on the campaign trail. With just four months till the September primary and Malliotakis only in the race a few weeks, early signs indicate Republican Party officials may be split on Massey and Malliotakis while a contentious primary battle has quickly emerged.

In hopes of denying Mayor Bill de Blasio a second term, some New York City Republican leaders intend to rally around a single candidate to avoid a contentious primary and present a stronger challenge in the general election. Starting this week, Republican Party leaders and members will begin the process of vetting candidates who have declared their intention to run for mayor or are exploring a mayoral bid. Party organizations will host public meetings where each candidate will have the opportunity to present their ideas to party voters and functionaries. When it fielded Joe Lhota in 2013 after a primary...

A millionaire Republican is seeking to challenge Democratic incumbent Bill de Blasio for the New York City mayoralty in the mold of Mike Bloomberg. Paul Massey, a real estate executive who recently moved to the city from Westchester County, launched a campaign website and filed the requisite forms Thursday with the Campaign Finance Board for the 2017 election, according to spokeswoman Jessica Proud. Board spokesman Matt Sollars said Friday afternoon that the board had not received Massey’s filing. Massey plans to self-fund the campaign with the help of donors, and will not participate in the city’s contribution-matching program, Proud said....

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The former CEO who oversaw the West Virginia mine that exploded in 2010, killing 29 people, was indicted Thursday on federal charges related to a mine safety investigation that followed the blast.

Inspectors have cited hundreds of safety violations at Massey Energy coal mines in Kentucky since an April 5 explosion at one of the company's mines in West Virginia killed 29 employees, federal records show. The 279 citations and orders in Kentucky, more than 80 of them alleging significant and substantial violations, were among a total of 442 issued to Massey underground mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia from April 5 through Thursday. Of those 442, more than half — 222 — were issued to one Massey property in Kentucky, Freedom Energy Mining Co. in Pike County, according to a...

MONTCOAL, W.Va. - Grieving relatives began burying victims of the Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster Friday as crews neared a refuge chamber deep underground where they had faint hope that survivors might be awaiting rescue. It was their fourth try to find the four miners missing since Monday's explosion killed 25 others in the nation's worst underground disaster since at least 1984. During the previous rescue attempt, searchers were forced to withdraw by dangerous gases and the risk of fire or explosion. Five ambulances had arrived at the mine site early Saturday. Gov. Joe Manchin promised families they should...

Apparently, the left will stoop to any level - any at all - in order to make a cheap political point. With the horrible accident ongoing and the fates of some miners still not known, the propagandists have already begun linking the West Virginia mining disaster to Tea Parties, global warming, and capitalism. Oh, and remember when President Bush somehow got blamed for the Sago mine disaster?! Surely, the Chosen One could have done something for these poor down-trodden workers...

BEAVER, W.Va. Environmental group Mountain Justice says six people arrested on trespassing charges during a coal mining protest are still jailed. The group said Sunday the six have been unable to raise $2,000 cash apiece to make bail. All six were arrested a day earlier at Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.'s Marfork Coal mining complex in Pettus. Mountain Justice says they were protesting Richmond, Va.-based Massey's plan to blast at the mine. Mountain Justice and a group called Climate Ground Zero say blasting could cause a coal slurry dam at the site to collapse. The arrests are the latest in...

UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday. In a move that provoked fury from officials of the Swiss firm Cotecna, an Australian former inspector detailed a picture of incompetence, indifference and drunkeness among the men acting as the frontline for UN sanctions. Arthur Ventham, a former Australian army officer and customs officer, joined the operation in 2002 and worked at various sites in Iraq and neighbouring states. He said that at Iskendurun in eastern...

It appears as though newcomer Republican Shane Massey has prevailed over longtime Democratic state Rep. Bill Clyburn in Tuesday’s Senate District 25 election. Clyburn, a state representative from Aiken, has been in the House since 1995, creating a political battle between rookie and experienced veteran. This time, the rookie came out on top. According to results provided by county registration and election officials, Massey narrowly escaped the election with a win after a strong turnout in his home county of Edgefield and the county of McCormick. Securing McCormick County was essentially what Massey needed to do, knowing Clyburn would likely...

JIMMY MASSEY'S LIES: THE AP FINALLY WAKES UP By Michelle Malkin   ·   December 14, 2005 09:01 AM More than a month after Ron Harris of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch exposed the fraudulent anti-war veteran Jimmy Massey's lies about alleged atrocities committed by him and his fellow Marines, the Associated Press has finally, finally acknowledged its own role in spreading Massey's unsubstantiated smears: In a lengthy telephone interview with The Associated Press, Massey repeated his claim that his unit _ and he personally _ fired on the demonstrators. He said four were killed. He said his original estimate of 10 was...

When the Abu Graib story broke, thanks to Mary Mapes of Rathergate fame, the mainstream news media collectively hyperventilated. In fact, the venerable New York Times ran more stories about the abuse at that Iraqi military prison than any other news story in recent history. The allegations leveled against the US military fit perfectly with the liberal media's view of American soldiers and intelligence officers: that they are brutal, ruthless killers and torturers. Even Democrat politicians appeared to become unhinged with their vitriol as they pointed to media reports regarding Abu Graib and, to a lesser degree, the Guantanamo Bay,...

When the Abu Graib story broke, thanks to Mary Mapes of Rathergate fame, the mainstream news media collectively hyperventilated. In fact, the venerable New York Times ran more stories about the abuse at that Iraqi military prison than any other news story in recent history. The allegations leveled against the US military fit perfectly with the liberal media's view of American soldiers and intelligence officers: that they are brutal, ruthless killers and torturers. Even Democrat politicians appeared to become unhinged with their vitriol as they pointed to media reports regarding Abu Graib and, to a lesser degree, the Guantanamo Bay,...

For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq. In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians. Among his claims: Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters. Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head. A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed...

Why did the press swallow Massey's stories? By Ron Harris POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU 11/05/2005 WASHINGTON Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them. For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims. The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book. Advertisement

ITHACA NY--"I lied, I cheated, and I deceived," Iraq War Veteran and former staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey said Friday in Anabel Taylor Hall. His lecture was part of his mission to reveal his own experiences as a recruitment counselor and a sergeant on the front lines of Iraq. Massey is currently touring upstate New York as a pacifist, commenting on American manipulation and treachery in the Marine Corps and in the War in Iraq. Massey was brought to Cornell by an Ithaca organization called Conscious Alternative to Militarism (CAM), which is currently working on a movement of counter-recruitment. Its goal...

In the scandal over the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, Kofi Annan's main line of defense has been that he didn't know. Perhaps he should take a closer look at internal U.N. Oil-for-Food audit reports, more than 50 in all, produced by his own Office of Internal Oversight Services--the same reports he's declined to share with the Security Council, or release to Congress. One of these reports has now leaked. It concerns the U.N. Secretariat's mishandling of the hiring of inspectors to authenticate the contents of relief shipments into sanctions-bound Iraq. (Obtained by a journalist specializing in the mining industry,...

<p>March 18, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan worked for a company the United Nations hired to police the notoriously corrupt Iraq oil-for-food program, raising new questions about the role of top diplomats in the growing bribery scandal. Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the secretary-general, confirmed yesterday that Annan's son, Kojo, worked for three years for the Swiss company, Cotecna, which the United Nations hired in 1999 to inspect food and medicine being shipped into Iraq under the program.</p>